Los Angeles' female rapper Sydney "Syd the Kyd" Bennett
a member of the collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, formed
the band Internet with
keyboardist Matt "Martians" Martin, bassist Patrick Paige, drummer Christopher Smith and guitarist Steve Lacy
(not to be confused with the great jazz musician Steve Lacy).
The soul-hop-funk-jazz hybrid of
Purple Naked Ladies (2011) yields the
funk-rap Lincoln,
the "stoned" Cunt,
the smooth jazz ballad She Dgaf,
the surrealistic wordless Violet Nude Women
and also the trivial neosoul of Cocaine.
The music is frequently at the service of lesbian love.
The intricate beat of Ode to a Dream and the jazzy beat of Fastlane
redeem the relatively slim instrumental base.
The more confident
Feel Good (2013) contains the
sweet Janet Jackson-ian funk-soul ballad Dontcha,
the space-funk-jazz shuffle Partners in Crime Part 2
and even an eight-minute Pupil/ The Patience with an electronic bluesy instrumental coda.
The more sophisticated funk-jazz sound of
Ego Death (2015), which features Lacy and Smith in the company of
keyboardist Jameel Bruner (Lacy produced most of the album himself), seems to hark back to the 1970s.
The songs are mostly gliding (Get Away) and
somnolent (Special Affair), culminating with the
seven-minute oneiric trip Girl (produced by Louis "Kaytranada" Celestin)
and the seven-minute mutant-jazzy Something's Missing.
The music is too mellow even by their standards.
Matt Martians released The Drum Chord Theory (2017),
Steve Lacy released Demo (2017),
and Patrick Paige released Letters of Irrelevance (2018), while Christopher Smith formed the duo C&T that debuted with Loud (2017).
The Internet dissolved after their fourth album, Hive Mind (2018).
dominated by Lacy's fat and funky bassline
festive The Beat Goes On and Come Together
Syd's voice shines in the slow seven-minute shuffle Hold On and in
the Caribbean-tinged Stay The Night.
The album also contains
the singles Roll (Burbank Funk), Come Over and La Di Da,
which are actually inferior songs.
Syd debuted solo with the feminist lesbian album Fin (2017), which contains the
trap-infected All About Me (produced by Lacy) and a lot of
Aaliyah-esque ballads,
and the EP Always Never Home (2017).
By then, her voice had become one of the most sensual in the whole of the neosoul landscape.
Syd's second solo album Broken Hearts Club (2022) suffers from very poor material, including the single Right Track.
Steve Lacy produces the most interesting song, BMHWDY.
Steve Lacy, a proud bisexual, self-produced Apollo XXI (2019), which
contains his first solo hit, Playground.
The nine-minute Like Me feels like a suite of different songs (including one sung by female singer Daisy World) over a sloppy beat.
His secondo solo album, Gemini Rights (2022), co-produced with fellow Internet member Matthew "Matt Martians" Martin (a founding member of hip-hop collective Odd Future) and Dacoury "DJ Dahi" Natche,
contains his biggest hit, the catchy and orchestral Bad Habits and
the surrealistic Caribbean Mercury, but also a lot of tedious ballads like the soul-hop duet with Britanny Foushee', Sunshine.
